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Oct 25

Harmon Kardon’s BTA 10 will bring wireless audio streaming to your home theater system

Do you have an awesome sound system setup in your home, but wish you could wirelessly stream music to it? While there are devices out there that allow for wireless streaming, the variety that consumers can choose from, versus the total number of speakers out there is pretty unbalanced, which means that in order to go for the best possible audio quality, some features like wireless streaming will have to be sacrificed. Well the good news is that Harmon Kardon has announced the BTA 10, a Bluetooth adapter that promises to allow for wireless streaming to any home theater receiver or sound dock.

It will pair with your device via Bluetooth and you can pair up to eight different devices at once, meaning that at a party you will have up to eight different playlists and music libraries from your party-goers to play from. The BTA 10 will ship with an RCA cable and a 3.5mm auxiliary cable and with its Bluetooth connectivity, this means that it won’t be limited to a particular platform and devices running on iOS, Android and Windows should be able to play nicely with it. Measuring 2”x2”, it is small enough to be inconspicuous and will set you back $59. More details can be found on Harmon Kardon’s website.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Harmon Kardon SB16 targets home theater enthusiasts, G-GRIP Bluetooth speaker is one tough cookie,

Sep 27

Harman shows off its upcoming JBL docks and speakers, we go eyes-on

Posted in: Today's Chili

Harman announced a fair amount of JBL-branded speakers back at IFA, but that wasn’t all it had to announce before the year goes out. Today we met with in the company in NYC, where it was ready to show off even more of its upcoming wireless and dock speakers. In fact, don’t tell Harmon that the 30-pin connector is on its way out, as its $199 OnBeat Venue (seen above and $139 OnBeat aWake are ready to pair up with your last-gen iOS devices. The Venue is rated for a peak output of 30-watts and features a stow-away dock a tweeter and woofer combo for both stereo channels, component outputs for use with TVs, an obligatory 3.5mm jack and Bluetooth if you’d prefer to go wireless. The aWake shrinks things down to about 13 watts, and features a digital clock so that you can use it on your bedside night stand — despite its small size, it’ll easily dock an iPad. Both systems also work with free JBL apps for iOS that’ll enhance the experience. According to the company, it’s also working on solutions for the Lightning connector, but wouldn’t reveal any hard details.

Gallery: JBL Onbeat Venue and aWake Bluetooth speaker docks eyes-on

Moving along to dedicated speakers, you might recall the SoundFly BT, which recently got outed during its trip to the FCC. The 20-watt Bluetooth-equipped unit is strictly intended to plug directly into wall outlets, having only a status light with no inputs or buttons. It’ll set you back $149 when it hits shelves, and if you tack another another $50 you can get an AirPlay-equipped version instead. We gave the BT a quick listen and it sounded surprisingly big with a fair amount of bass extension — impressive considering it’s petite and it plug-friendly design. A Harmon rep even noted that the hotel we were in was interested in procuring some for its rooms. Sadly, the units aren’t remotely water-resistant, even though our demo area was a bathroom.

Gallery: JBL SoundFly BT and Air eyes-on

Lastly, we’re actually most intrigued by the $59 Harman / Kardon BTA 10 dongle. The nearly matchbook-sized box connects to any speaker via its 3.5mm jack, allowing you to stream over Bluetooth 4.0 on the fly. Power is supplied via a micro-USB cable, and a blue indicator light lets you know that it’s powered up. Harmon’s mainly created it to add Bluetooth functionality to its non-wireless speakers, but it can be used with any speaker of your choice. We’re also told that it overs very high-quality, despite being Bluetooth, thanks to some in-house development dubbed as TrueStream. There’s no exact word on when all of these units will hit shelves, but you can peek the galleries for better looks — check the source link for full details.

Gallery: Harman / Kardon BTA 10 Bluetooth Adapter eyes-on